Published on: 15 April 2021
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) held its 8th session of the Sub-Committee on Pollution Prevention and Response (PPR) virtually between the 22 and 26 of March 2021. An International Council of Marine Industry Associations (ICOMIA) representative attends these meetings and has now released a report highlighting the key points that affect our members, in particular in the Superyacht industry. This report and its supporting documents are available to British Marine members to download from the British Marine website here.
The principle items of interest to the Superyacht industry discussed in the meeting are:
1. Progress on amendments to Biofouling Guidelines
An outline draft amendment to the “control and management of ships’ biofouling to minimise the transfer of invasive species” guidelines was submitted for review at the subcommittee.
This outline was fully supported by the Sub-Committee along with the other proposals from the group for the progression of the work. It was agreed to re-establish the correspondence group with instructions to complete the revision of the guidelines using the draft skeleton. One of the key tasks of the group will be to provide guidance on whether the removal of macrofouling should be restricted to dry-docks or could be carried out during in-water cleaning. Macrofouling means large multicellular organisms visible to the human eye such as barnacles, tubeworms or fronds of algae. This is in contrast to microfouling which means microscopic organisms such as bacteria and diatoms and the slimy substances they produce.
To complete the work MEPC 76 will be requested to extend the target completion year of the output to 2023.
2. Progress on provisions for record-keeping and measures to confirm lifetime performance of sewage treatment plants
Revision of MARPOL Annex IV and associated guidelines to introduce provisions for record-keeping and measures to confirm the lifetime performance of sewage treatment plants – The sub-committee considered the report of the correspondence group that was established at PPR 7 to look into the question of record-keeping and lifetime performance of sewage treatment plants.
The draft MARPOL IV amendments and the draft guidelines can be found in annexes 1 and 2 respectively of the report of the correspondence group found in the downloadable ICOMIA report.
The Sub-Committee agreed to re-establish the correspondence group with the terms of reference which can be found in paragraph 7.11 of the draft report of the sub-committee in PPR 8/WP.1.
Due to the extent of additional work required, MEPC 76 will be requested to extend the target completion year to 2023.
3. Progress on amendments to MARPOL V in respect of marine plastic litter
The principal source of marine plastic litter is from discarded fishing gear and the group developed a draft skeleton for an MEPC resolution introducing amendments to MARPOL Annex V and an appendix listing the data to be considered for reporting the loss or discharge of fishing gear. The Sub-Committee agreed to establish a working group at PPR 9 for progressing the work on the MARPOL amendments and draft amendments to the 2017 Guidelines for the implementation of MARPOL Annex V (Resolution MEPC.295(71). The Sub-Committee has requested MEPC 76 to extend the target completion year of this output to 2023.
Please note the full report is available to download from the link given above, the report has embedded pdf supporting documents with the full details from the PPR sub-committee meeting. To access the embedded reports members, need to download the report and enable editing on the word doc and then click on the embedded pdfs.